Author: Angelo

Many souls, even Sicilians and those of Sicilian descent, have the same misconception held by Italians and non-Italians everywhere: that “Sicilian” is simply a different, “cruder” form of the Italian language. Nothing could be further from the truth. While today’s Italians and sadly, today’s Sicilians, are told “by those that know” that Sicilian is the language of the poor or ignorant, the Sicilian LANGUAGE was the first “Romance” language to develop from Latin, the early language of state. As such, it includes not only words derived from Latin roots (as did the Italian dialect “Tuscan” which became the official Italian language), but it has rich inclusions from the tongues of the many occupiers of Sicily, including Carthaginian, Greek, Arabic, French and Spanish.Sicilian was the language of poets, taught in the Sicilian School of Roger the Great a thousand years ago, but it is no longer taught in Sicilian schools. If you’re an “Italian American”, the odds are good that your immigrant ancestors, like the majority of “Italian” émigrés during the Great Migration, were from Sicily, and that they spoke, not Italian, but SICILIAN.This page is inspired by the facebook group “Speak Sicilian” (http://bit.ly/LearnToSpeakSicilian), where you can read or write in the Sicilian language; ask how to say an English word or phrase in Sicilian; ask what aSicilian word means in English; or learn (or teach) Sicilian.Vowels in the Sicilian language have the following sounds (phonetics are in English): A is “ah”; E is “eh” (“long a”); I is “ee”; O is “oh” (“long o), and U is “oo”. “ A, E, I, O, U” in Italian is “ah, eh, ee, oh, oo”!! The English sound of I (“long i” as in “eye”) is given by the combination “ai” in Sicilian. Sicilian has no letter “k”, “y” or “w”. It has a letter written like “j”, but this “j” is a form of the letter “i”, and is pronounced as we would pronounce “y” in English.

In Sicilian spellings, “c”, if it is followed by “a”, “o” or “u”, is pronounced like the English “k”; but if it is followed by an “i” or “e”, then “c” is pronounced like the English “ch” (as in “church”). Double “cc” is also pronounced as the English “K”.”ch” in Sicilian is NOT pronounced as in English, but sounds like the English “k”. So my cousins, the Miccichèfamily, pronounce their surname “mee-chee-KAY”.

Similarly, “g” is pronounced as in the English “good” if followed by “a”, “o” or “u”; but “g” is pronounced like the English “j” (as in “George”) if it is followed by an “i” or “e”. In Sicilian pronunciation, the “g” sound at the start of words is often “swallowed”, and sometimes also the middle of words. The “g” is silent when followed by the consonant “l”.

The letter “j”, in my Sicilian usage, I consider as an “i”, but I use it to distinguish it from a following “i”, as in “jiri” (English phonetics: YIH-rih)

Is Sicilian a ‘Dialect’?

Some (generally Northern Italians) try to imply that Sicilian is simply a dialect of the Italian language. The Italian language itself was once a dialect, Toscano, or Tuscan, which was one of many Apennine peninsula dialects that developed from Latin.Many modern day languages trace their origins to the Latin spoken in ancient Rome. These are the ‘Romance’ languages, which include Tuscan (Italian); Spanish; Portugese; French; and Rumanian.But there is strong evidence that the first Romance language to develop from Latin was the Sicilian language.I’m not a trained linguist, and my knowledge of Tuscan is book-learned, while I learned Sicilian at my mother’s knee. However, I’m a self-taught student of languages, and my education as an engineer has taught me to have a curiosity for how all things have developed. When words are considered in their Latin origin and then compared in Sicilian and Italian, the words seem clearly to have progressed from Latin to Sicilian, to Italian; in some cases, Italian words bear no likeness to Latin and Sicilian words that are clearly related.

In Latin, “brother” is frater (FRAH-tehr); in Sicilian, it’s frati (FRAH-tih). In Tuscan/Italian, it’s fratello (fruh-TELL-oh). I seriously doubt that the word went from frater to fratello to frati; it seems clear that the progression was from Latin to Sicilian to Tuscan. The same can be said for the words for “sister”: Latin soror, Sicilian soru, Tuscan sorella.

In Latin, as in Sicilian and Tuscan, many nouns have masculine or feminine endings. Latin’s endings are “us” (oos) for the masculine and “a” (ah) for the feminine. Again, to me, it seems much more likely that the many Sicilian masculine nouns that end in “u” (oo) derive directly from Latin, and that the Tuscan masculine ending of “o” came later. Examples are “rabbit”: Latin cuniculus, Sicilian cunigliu, and Tuscan coniglio; and “son”; Latinfilius, Sicilian figliu, and Tuscan figlio. In my youth, I mistakenly thought that ny parents pronounced the ‘Italian’ sound of “o” as “u”. After serious reconsideration, I believe that in fact, the Tuscan and Italianpronunciation changed, devolving the original Latin (and Sicilian) “u” to sound like “o”.

Other words (presented in the order Latin, Sicilian, Tuscan) show similar evolution: “wife”: mulieri, muglieri,moglie; and “how”: quomodus, comu, come.

And then there are words for which the Sicilian is clearly derived from the Latin, while the Tuscan appears to have come from a completely different source. In Latin, the verb “to go” is ire (IHR-eh); in Sicilian, it’s jiri(YIHR-ih); but in Tuscan/Italian, it’s andare. In Latin, the pronoun “he” is illus, Sicilian iddu, but in Tuscan it’slui; and “she” is illa in Latin, idda in Sicilian, but lei in Tuscan!

The Sicilian words given below are as I learned them from parents who left Sicily a hundred years ago. As such they reflect the language as it was spoken in Sicily around the beginning of the 1900s, which was not much modified by incursions of the Tuscan dialect that the ‘Risorgimento’ imposed on Sicily. I believe its ‘purity’ was also enhanced by the fact that Serradifalco is and was a small interior town having limited contact with speakers of Tuscan, or the modified Sicilian dialects of other regions. Language scholar Alissandru Caldiero, author of Grammar of the Sicilian Language, has informed me that my Sicilian (that is, my parents’Sicilian) resembles the language spoken at the court of Frederick II.

Meaning

Latin

Sicilian

Italian

above

supra

supra

sopra

apple

pomum

pumu

mela

below

subtus

suttu

sotto

brother

frater

frati

fratello

cheek

maxilla

masciedda

guancia

cherry

cerasus

cirasu

ciliegia

empty

vacuus

vacanti

vuoto

father

pater

patri

padre

to fix

exserciare

azzizzari

aggiustari

from

de

di

da

to go

ire

jiri

andare

good

bonus

bonu

buono

half

medius

mezzu

metà

I have

habeo

haiu

ho

he

illus

iddu

lui

hello

salve

saluti

ciao

here

hac

ca

qua

horse

cavallus

cavaddu

cavallo

how

quomodo

comu

come

I know

scio

saiu, sacciu

so

long

longus

lungu

lungo

mother

mater

matri

madre

new

novus

nuvu

nuovo

peach

persicum

pirsica

pesca

pear

pirum

piru

pera

rabbit

cuniculus

cunigliu

coniglio

scissors

forfex

forfici

forbici

she

illa

idda

lei

sister

soror

soru

sorella

son

filius

figliu

figlio

sweet

dulcis

duci

dolce

then

tum

tannu

poi

tree

arbor

arbulu

albero

where is

ubi est

unni è

dove è

who

qui

cu

che

wife

mulier

muglieri

moglie

with

cum

cu

con

Students of language report that Dante Alighieri, the medieval poet, was greatly influenced by the language that had been spoken at the court of Sicily’s Frederick II, namely the Sicilian tongue that was studied and written at the famous Sicilian School. Dante is credited with polishing the Tuscan dialect, doing so with words and ideas adapted from the Sicilian School and its language. For example, the sonnet, a form of poetry unknown before Frederick’s reign, evolved in Sicily, only to become a major form of poetry throughout not only Italy, but the world. Sicilian is a LANGUAGE, that is true; however, like many other languages, it has different dialects within it, that have developed in various regions of Sicily and in the south of the Apennine peninsula. Below is a vocabulary of English words and their meanings in Sicilian, with variations for the dialects of several towns or regions. It appears that in central Sicily, in Caltanissetta province northern Agrigento province and eastern Palermo province, the classic Sicilian language still prevails as it was spoken in the court of Frederick II. This is characterized by words like figliu (son) and cunigliu (rabbit), which in dialects elsewhere have become figghiuand cunigghiu; and especially lu (masculine ‘the’), la (feminine ‘the’) and li (plural ‘the), which in dialects have devolved into u, a and i.I invite all Sicilians and all those of Sicilian descent to e-mail me, to add your own versions of these words. Please identify them by region, and add as many English words you like, with their Sicilian equivalents.

Viva la lingua Siciliana!!!

Sicilian Words

To use the table, remember the pronunciation guide given above.

In English

In serrafarchisi
(Serradifalco)

In missinisi
(Messina)

In palermitanu
(Palermo)

In altavillisi(Altavilla)

In sciacchatanu(Sciacca)

verb: I am

sugnu

ant

formícula

apple

pumu

verb: they are

sunnu

ball

palla

pallunni

verb: to be

jèssiri

beautiful (feminine)

bedda

bedda

beddra

below

suttu

bird

anciddu

aceddu

aceddu

a little bit

tantícchia

boy

carusu

boy, little

picciliddu

piccirriddu

boy, teen

piciottu

carpet

trappitu

cheese

tumazzu

coffee

cafè

cafè

cupboard

stipu

verb: to cry

chiàngiri

daughter

figlia

figghia

day

jurnu

jurnu

donkey

sceccu

sceccu

dresser

cantaranu

ear

oricchiu

verb: to eat

mangiari

mangiari

eggplant

milingiana

mulinciana

fig cookies

pucciddati

pucciddati

cucciddati

cuccinnati

finger

jitu

fingernail

ugnu

verb: to fold

gnutticari

folded

gnutticatu

fork

furcetta

from

di

verb: to fix

azzizzari

girl

carusa

girl, little

piccilidda

piccirridda

girl, teen

piciotta

verb: to go

jiri

jiri

goat

crapa

half

mezzu

hammer

martiddu

handkerchief

fazzulettu

handsome (masculine)

biddu

biddu

he

iddu

here

cca

hole

pirtusu

pitusu

in, inside, into

intra

nta

verb: he or she is

jè (yeh)

key

chiavi

chiavi

chiavi

kidneys

rini

knee

ghinucchiu

knife

cutiddu

verb: to knock

tuppiari

leaf

foglia

verb: to look

taliari

middle

mezzu

mop

cannavazzu

nail

chiuvu

chiovu

napkin

serbietta

mappina

of

di

others

antri

autri

page

foglio

pliers

tinaglia

polenta (Sicilian style)

frascàtula

verb: to rain

chioviri

rifle

scupetta

verb: to speak

parlari

parrari

scissors

furfici

she

idda

sheep

picuridda

shoe

scarpa

shoulders

spaddi

son

figliu

figghiu

spider

tarantula

spoon

cucchiara

sugar

zuccheru

zuccheru

summer

staggiuni

Sunday

duminica

ruminica

table

tavulinu

tail

cuda

the (masc., fem.)

lu, la

u, a

the (plural)

li

i

then

tannu

there (far)

dda

there (near)

dducu

today

oi (OY-ih)

oggi

toe

jitu di pedi

toenail

ugnu

tomato

pumudoru

pomuroru

tree

arbulu

arvulu

arbulu

under

suttu

us

nuantri

nuautri

verb: he or she was

jèra, fú

verb: they were

jèranu, fúranu

winter

nmirnu

word

palora

parola

verb: to work

travagliari

wow

mísca

mizzica

I’ve translated the following from the Italian. I must say some of it is over my head, but it’s clear that reasoned research has shown that the Tuscan dialect, and the Italian language that sprang from it, were derived from theSicilian language spoken in the court of Frederick II and studied in his Sicilian School of poetry.If only our northern Italian brothers would recognize the Sicilian heritage of their language, and cease referring to Sicilian as the language of the poor and ignorant. “Lu Sicilianu” should be taught in Sicily’s schools and spoken by its citizens,

Dante loses his paternity: the Italian language was born in SicilyA new confirmation of the origins of Italian heterodox undermines centuries of literary and cultural monopoly: the Sicilian poets widespread in Lombardy, before their presence in TuscanyNoemi Ghetti
Friday, June 14, 2013http://babylonpost.globalist.it/The discovery of some poems of the Sicilian School in a Lombard library by the researcher Joseph Mascherpa brings to the fore the debate about the true origins of the Italian language. The theme is echoed by Cesare Segre in an article in the Corriere della Sera of 13 June, which underlines just how the ‘change of perspective’ in research is due to the sudden turn in recent times, of thirteenth-century manuscripts in places hitherto unsuspected .

One example is the discovery of at least four poems on the back of Sicilian scrolls bearing convictions of members of large Guelph families for violations of rules on tournaments. In those days, you know, notaries were often poets, and filled in the blank backs in this way, avoiding illegal notations in the margins of the records.

There are important fragments of poems, attributable among other authors such as Giacomo da Lentini, ‘the Notary’ founder of the Sicilian School, and even to Frederick II, the emperor-poet who was the genius patron of the arts. Occurring in the crucial decades 1270-1290, the transcript leads us to hypothesize the existence of a small songbook of poems of the Sicilian School, circulated in Lombardy in those years. It is in addition to the recent discovery of another mutilated manuscript, discovered by Luca Cadioli in the attic of a noble Milanese, which contains the only faithful translation from the French of Lancelot du lac, the classic novel about the loves of Lancelot and Guinevere, remembered by Francesca da Rimini in her caharacterization in Canto V of Dante’s Inferno.

Now as then, once again for us, “The book was condemned, and he who wrote it.” These findings sound like an endorsement of the original idea that our [Italian] language was born at the beginning of the thirteenth century by the revolt of the Sicilian poets against ecclesiastical Latin, developed in 2011 in my essay ‘The Shadow of Cavalcanti and Dante’ (L’Asino d’oro editions).

The transcripts of the Sicilians are especially interesting because they let us see in them glimpses of the original lyric language, so far lost except in a single case, which predate the Tuscanized versions by which we know them. It reconstructs for us, if we care to deduce it, the view of a secular literary culture, widespread in the thirteenth century in the Italian peninsula far beyond what the traditional scheme suggests.

It affects in this way a well-established historical reconstruction that makes the Tuscans, after the fall of the Swabians and the Ghibelline party in Benevento (1266), the sole heirs of Sicilian poetry. In fact, it immediately comes to mind that northern Italy welcomed the Cathars and troubadours on the run, in the aftermath of the fierce Albigensian Crusade which dispersed the civilization of neighboring Provence. And that in Northern Italy there persisted a widespread tradition of French ballads of love and adventure, happily reprised at the fifteenth-century University of Ferrara by Boiardo’s Orlando in Love, it was later reported in the Orlando Furioso of Ariosto, and was also the standard language of the Florentine Pietro Bembo, canonized as a Cardinal in 1524.

The reaction of the Church against the magnificent flowering secular language of the thirteenth century was in fact very hard: in February 1278 in the Arena of Verona a huge fire burned the last 166 Cathars, and in 1285 the Parisian philosopher Siger of Brabant was assassinated. Excommunicated and condemned to death, waiting for forgiveness in the papal curia of Orvieto, where he had fled after 1277, Bishop Tempier of Paris had judged heretical his evolution of Latin that had animated, with De Amore by Andrea Cappellano, the origins of poetry including the stilnovisti[New Stylists] Guinizzelli and Cavalcanti. The offense certainly did not go unnoticed in thestilnovisti environment. So the last decade of the thirteenth century saw the conversion of Dante’s love of woman to the love of God, which proceeds in stages from Vita Nova through the Convivio to the Divine Comedy. In 1300, in which the otherworldly journey of the Comedy is set, Dante’s exile from Florence was sealed, followed by the premature death of Cavalcanti.

In the sacred poem [the Divine Comedy] Federico II is condemned to Hell (Canto X) in a group of heretics, “that with the body make the soul mortal.” He is destined to be teacher and “first friend,” endowed with “loftiness of genius,” but “he had a disdain for” the faith. Pier delle Vigne, Sicilian poet and secretary to the emperor[Frederick II], is placed between the suicides, and tells Dante their drama, so convoluted, because the unforgivable sin of the Sicilians, in the eyes of Dante, is to have attempted a search for carnal love and passion, outside of religion, inventing a new language. Sordello of Goito, a troubadour who had found fortune in Provence and returned to Italy in 1269, of Mantuan origin like Virgil, is placed instead in Purgatory (CantoVI-VIII), like other poets of the thirteenth century.

The prejudice against Sicilians therefore has ancient roots, and a careful analysis of the texts of Dante and solutions that gradually imposed themselves in the secular ‘language issue’ show how, in spite of accepted theory, it originates from Dante himself. He was the most famous poet to establish himself as a ‘father’ of the modern Italian language, obscuring one hundred years of research of the love poetry from which it was born, with a systematic work of re-semanticization of the spiritual and Christian vernacular vocabulary of its origins. Even in the nineteenth century a sensitive critic, Francesco de Sanctis, demonstrates a certain deafness to the poets of the Sicilian School, and we had to wait until 2008 to have the first complete critical edition and commentary, in three volumes of Meridiani.

It is interesting as an aside to recognize, in the limited number of ‘outdated’ studies of the last century, like those of Bruno Nardi and Maria Corti, the original judgment of Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks about the thirteenth century and Dante. It is perhaps the most well-known essay on Canto X of the Inferno contained in the Notebooks (1931-32), with explicit distance from religion, and important messages in code intended for ‘”former friend” Togliatti.

Somewhat less well-known is Gramsci’s appreciation for Guido Cavalcanti. His words, which erect to the “highest exponent” the uprising in medieval theocratic thinking and conscious use of the vernacular instead of Latin and Virgil, were taken almost verbatim from Gianfranco Contini. For Gramsci, a fine linguist, the Comedy is “the medieval swan song,” and his work as a Latinization of the vernacular marks the crisis of the rebirth of the secular and the transition to Christian humanism. Read the Comedy “with love” is the attitude of “simpleton professors who make religions of some poet or writer, and celebrate strange philological rites.” Appreciate the aesthetic values​​, he writes from Iulca in a letter from prison in 1931, warning against uncritical transmission of the poem to your children; that does not mean you agree with its ideological content.

Every Wednesday night, a small group of students gather for their language course at the Italian Charities of America Inc. in Flushing, Queens. Ironically, the students are not interested in learning Italian, but a separate language that arrived during the wave of Italian immigration to New York City. These students are the children and grandchildren of Sicilian immigrants.

“We only write the phrases on the board in Sicilian, not in Italian, so that is what stays in our memories after class,” says Salvatore Cottone, teacher of the Sicilian language class. On the chalkboard, Cottone has written, “Dumani Marialena sinni va cu zitu.” If he were to compare it to Italian, it would say “Marialena andrà con il suo ragazzo.” It would not help the students to observe the ways that one language relates to the other; they are completely separate in form, construction, and syntax.

Sicilian and Italian are both audibly and visibly diverse. To note a few examples, Sicilian uses different vowel sounds, relying on a long “u” rather than the “o” as in “trenu” (train) and “libbru” (book) instead of “treno” and “libro.” There is no future tense verb conjugation; instead, context words such as tomorrow, “dumani,” and later, “doppu,” are used to indicate that the action will take place in the future. The cadence and pronunciation of Sicilian also demonstrate obvious differences from the standard Italian.

Scholars have found that Sicilian was the first written language in Italy after Latin. Declared by UNESCO as the first romance language of Europe, Sicilian contains a unique vocabulary of over 250,000 words. Since Italian Unification in 1870, however, when Tuscan became the national language, Sicilian has become less prominent in the southern regions of Italy and Sicily.

Although nearly 20 million people in Sicily and around the world still speak Sicilian, it is not included in Sicilian academic curricula. School systems are only required to teach Italian standard grammar, and as a result, children are not encouraged to learn proper Sicilian grammar. Despite efforts to bring teachers and Sicilian grammar courses back to the education track, funds have been insufficient.

In New York City, where the largest community of Sicilians is found outside of Italy, the Sicilian language faces a similar struggle to remain active. Despite the large number of Sicilian-speaking immigrants who arrived in the early twentieth century, settling in neighborhoods such as Ridgewood, Astoria, Bensonhurst and Bayridge, the language is seldom heard and almost never written down. To counter this obsolescence, international organizations such as Arba Sicula, Vanvakys Art International Inc., and the Sicilian Cultural Institute of America have been working adamantly to save this language that was once vibrant in the core of the Mediterranean.

The root cause for this disintegration, as seen with other endangered languages, can be traced back to the home. As Miki Makihara says, “Parents might even decide to not talk to their children in their native language but rather the new language of the new country because they figure, that’s the language that will get them ahead in school and in getting a job.” Makihara, a professor of linguistic anthropology at CUNY, explains the challenges that immigrant communities in New York City face when assimilating to a new culture and language. If this transitional process, referred to as language shift, occurs without the preservation of the native tongue, a language can move dangerously close to extinction.

Arba Sicula offers an outlet for Sicilian Americans to preserve their language and culture. Standing for “Sicilian Dawn,” the organization was founded in 1979 by Sicilian immigrants in New York City and has grown from 700 to nearly 2,000 members since 1988. Gaetano Cipolla, president of Arba Sicula since 1987, is also editor of the organization’s journal Arba Sicula, the largest Italian American publication in the United States. He states on his website that, “Books are our best bet to overcome the silly stereotypes of Sicilians produced by the mass media.” Placing the words on the page reminds old and new members that their culture cannot be forgotten so long as it is recorded. Written in both Sicilian and English, the journal aims to educate readership of how their native language looks and gives them a chance to practice reading the language. Their current focus is, as Cipolla says, “To get the new people in; the second, third and fourth generations, and we’re having some success.”

Domenic Giampino and Salvatore Cottone are working with these more recent generations on a local level at their Sicilian language class. They recognized that most Sicilian-Americans who still speak the language are now elderly, and that the language and culture should be passed on to those who will retain its legacy. Their classroom is found at Italian Charities in Flushing, Queens.

Giampino started the Sicilian class last fall for young and old Sicilian-Americans interested in learning or re-learning the language of their ancestors. It made sense to choose Cottone, founder of Vanvakys Art International Inc, and immigrant from Palermo, to teach the class. In his last ten years living in New York, Cottone has organized lectures and conventions to expose the ways that Sicilian art, food, and history have made strong international influences. Reviving the language, Cottone believes, is one important way that Sicilian Americans can preserve their culture and show that the country has more to offer than the Mafia.

The two-hour classes are split into a comprehensive history and culture lecture, followed by language practicum and conversation. They use one of the few Sicilian grammar texts, “Introduction to Sicilian Grammar,” by Kirk Bonner, edited by Gaetano Cipolla.

When Giampino first introduced the idea to the community, many challenged his motives. “They say, ‘well its barely even written,’ and then you show them a textbook and they’re like ‘oh my god.’ It’s like an uphill battle that in a sense has to be fought because if it’s not, what will happen is that eventually the language will die out,” says Giampino. These men are doing something revolutionary for the Sicilian-American community.

While these language classes have existed for only one year, they are receiving positive feedback from Sicilian friends and colleagues abroad. This summer, Fonso Genchi, living near Palermo, contacted Giampino for guidance and textual supplements for the Sicilian language course he was starting in Palermo and Termini Imerese. This is a positive step toward language preservation. If educators living in Sicily are able to challenge the Italian-only curricula of school systems, they will make great internal strides. Genchi’s course will emphasize the importance of speaking Sicilian, and most importantly, speaking with proper grammatical structure.

Education and documentation are so important, says Gaetano Cipolla, because, “People don’t realize that when you give up something like that, you give up part of your identity.”

Like this:

True Sicilian cannoli are made using fresh sheep’s-milk ricotta. We’ve substituted a combination of fresh cow’s-milk ricotta and goat cheese. If you don’t like goat cheese, use additional ricotta instead

Whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda. Add 2 tablespoons lard and blend in with your fingertips until combined. Add wine and yolk and stir until a dough forms.

Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, 5 to 7 minutes. Form dough into a disk and wrap tightly in plastic wrap, then let stand at room temperature 1 hour.

Make filling while dough stands:
Beat together ricotta, goat cheese, confectioners sugar, orange peel, orange-flower water, and cinnamon in a bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed 1 minute (do not overbeat). Fold in nuts and chocolate until combined and chill.

Make shells:
Set smooth rollers of pasta maker at widest setting. Unwrap dough and cut in half, then lightly flour 1 piece (keep remaining half covered with plastic wrap). Flatten floured dough into an oval and feed through rollers. Turn dial down 2 notches and feed dough through rollers again. Continue to feed dough through rollers, making space between rollers narrower by 2 notches each time, until narrowest setting is used.

Line a baking sheet with plastic wrap. Transfer rolled dough to a lightly floured surface and cut out 4 or 5 rounds with floured cutter. Transfer rounds to baking sheet and keep covered with more plastic wrap. Roll out remaining dough and cut rounds in same manner. Gather scraps and let stand 10 minutes. Roll out scraps and cut in same manner.

Heat remaining lard with 1 1/4 inches oil in a 4-quart heavy pot over moderate heat until it registers 350°F on thermometer.

Fry dough on tubes 1 at a time, turning with metal tongs, until 1 shade darker, about 45 seconds. Wearing oven mitts, clamp end of hot tubes, 1 at a time, with tongs and, holding tube vertically, allow shell to slide off tube onto paper towels, gently shaking tube and wiggling shell as needed to loosen. (If you allow shell to cool it will stick to tube and shatter when you try to remove it.) Transfer shells to paper towels to drain and cool tubes before reusing. Wrap remaining dough around tubes and fry in same manner.

Spoon filling into pastry bag and pipe some into 1 end of a cannoli shell, filling shell halfway, then pipe into other end. Repeat with remaining shells.

Cooks’ notes:•Dough can be made 1 day before frying shells and chilled. Let dough stand at room temperature 1 hour before rolling.
•Shells can be fried 2 days ahead and cooled completely, then kept, layered between paper towels, in an airtight container at room temperature.

Like this:

Requirements For Ongoing
Receipt Of Scholarship Monies

Annually have your college’s Registrar department mail an official verified transcript to the UNICO mailbox:

UNICO – Scholarships
PO BOX 41
Pleasantville, NJ 08232

Your transcript must show that you are a matriculated full time student in your respective school

Your transcript must show that you are maintaining and cumulative GPA of greater than 2.5, (Need based 3.0)

Your transcript must show that you are that you are progressing towards graduation in five years.

Any deviation from these items must be reviewed by the committee – Please write a letter to the committee explaining the circumstances. That letter and any corresponding items will be reviewed and you will be notified of the decision.

Requirements For Ongoing
Receipt Of Scholarship Monies

Annually have your college’s Registrar department mail an official verified transcript to the UNICO mailbox:

UNICO – Scholarships
PO BOX 41
Pleasantville, NJ 08232

Your transcript must show that you are a matriculated full-time student in your respective school

Your transcript must show that you are maintaining and cumulative GPA of greater than 2.5, (Need based 3.0)

Your transcript must show that you are that you are progressing towards graduation in five years.

Any deviation from these items must be reviewed by the committee – Please write a letter to the committee explaining the circumstances. That letter and any corresponding items will be reviewed and you will be notified of the decision.